


three years in parallel

by dandelionweed



Category: Actor RPF, Robin Hood (BBC 2006), Robin Hood (BBC 2006) RPF, The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit RPF
Genre: Actors Acting, Character Bleed, Developing Relationship, F/M, RPF
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-25
Updated: 2013-07-25
Packaged: 2017-12-21 08:17:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/898035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dandelionweed/pseuds/dandelionweed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Are those little metal bats on your gloves?"<br/>He glances down. "It would appear so, yes."<br/>"Cute." She smiles. </p>
<p>Prompt: "Killing someone is an emotional thing, even if it's only acting." Given the opportunity, Richard Armitage wouldn't buy Guy of Gisbourne a beer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	three years in parallel

**Author's Note:**

> This hasn't got much to do with The Hobbit actually, but the prompt that started it was on the Hobbit kink meme. It's here: http://hobbit-kink.livejournal.com/6124.html?thread=17536492
> 
> warning: a lot of stupid dialogue.

The first time they meet, Lucy is wearing a striped cotton blouse and black trousers. Her hair is pulled back from her face with a band, and she has a faint summery gloss on her lips, which are curved into a shy smile. She looks young, and pretty, and earnest.

Richard is dressed in a t-shirt, jeans and light jacket. His hair is slightly unkempt and his face slightly unshaven, but in what he would be willing to risk calling a reasonably attractive manner. He smiles and shakes her hand, and they settle in for a table read with the rest of the cast, which goes very well, in his opinion.

They don't get much opportunity to speak -- Jonas monopolizes her time, as might be expected, and it quickly becomes evident that Keith is going to be a nightmare for Richard -- but he does catch her eye across the room a couple of times. She always looks a little flustered, but smiles back before glancing quickly away.

Richard likes her. He's been a bit relaxed, but he thinks he's made a decent first impression. He thinks they could get along.

\--

The second time they meet is after the costume fittings, and Richard is dressed in head-to-toe asymmetrical black leather, with multiple superfluous metal buckles and what appears to be black leather piping on black leather boots, black leather shoulder padding, and black leather gloves. His hair is combed into a stiff mullet, possibly with black leather polish.

He strides out of the costume department. Lucy looks at him.

"What?" he says.

"Nothing," she says.

In retrospect, Richard is incredibly glad that she's seen him dressed like a grown, sane man prior to this, and knows that his hair is not usually glued into the shape it is now. He hopes that first impression has stuck.

"I like it," she adds after a pause. "Very medieval punk rock."

"Thank you," he says.

"Are those little metal bats on your gloves?"

He glances down. "It would appear so, yes."

"Cute." She smiles. "It's a bit biker-gang-Batman, I think."

"As long as I can get a horse with a rocket-booster," Richard says.

He steps back and looks at what she's wearing. It is a flowing, period-appropriate white lace frock that skims her curves perfectly and contrasts rather strikingly against her dark curls.

"You look… very good in that," Richard says, trying not to sound affronted.

"Normally I would tell you not to sound so surprised, but I'm a bit shocked too," she admits.

Richard tags an unsaid "considering what you're wearing" to the end of that, and thinks that Lucy is much, much kinder than she needs to be.

"Camera tests in ten minutes," the director leans his head in the door to shout. Everybody looks up. Jonas hoists his quiver up on his shoulder and starts to head off, and everybody falls in behind him.

"C'mon," Lucy whispers, and tilts her head towards him with a friendly glance. She drifts off, hem of her skirt fluttering.

Richard's black leather trousers squeak all the way across the studio.

She doesn't say a word, and this is how he knows that yeah, they're going to get along.

\--

"Are you wearing mascara?"

"What? No," Richard says. Lucy squints at him.

It's between takes, and the crew are busy setting up the next shot. He thinks about it. "I don't think so," he amends.

"You don't pay attention to what they're putting on you?"

"I try not to," he says.

She makes an 'acknowledged' face. "I ask because they keep running out of it for me. I know they're not using it on Gordon," she says.

"Maybe Keith is stealing it," Richard suggests, even though, yes, he is probably wearing Lucy's mascara. "I think he likes it."

"Likes it on you, or on himself?" she says.

"He's going to have a lot more luck putting it on himself, if he wants a dress-up doll."

"I don't know. I'm sure he'll find it useful to know that you try not to think about what substances people put onto your face in the mornings," she says.

"What?"

"ACTION," the director shouts.

Lucy blinks and her eyelashes flutter. Richard has to resist the urge to blink as well.

"Richard, your line," the director says after a minute.

Richard makes a mental note to work on this during rehearsal.

\--

Filming goes smoothly the first few weeks, while everybody is working off the scripts they'd been rehearsing with in pre-production. Getting to know each other isn't difficult, and they all go out for drinks in the evenings, making their way slowly down the pubs on the street. It takes a while before they figure out the actual price of beer, as every place they visit attempts to overcharge them. Still, they sort it out with a minimum of arguments, and everybody has a good time.

Two things mark the beginning of the difficult part of the job. First of all, they start working on new scripts as they arrive, so that less time is spent in the evenings socializing and more is spent learning the lines and working out the scenes. Second of all, summer arrives.

Summer arrives in Budapest the same way you'd say a car crusher arrives at the bonnet of a small automobile. It arrives suddenly but firmly, and absolutely flattens all of them. Moving is difficult, let alone choreographed running and dodging and fighting all day. By the time it's done, nobody wants to hang around, which makes rehearsal of new material somewhat tricky to coordinate.

Days into this, he gets his first text message.

The phone his agent has acquired for him for the duration of his stay in the country is simple, sleek, seamless and apparently indestructible. It buzzes just once. He flips it open and looks at the screen. No incoming call, just a message.

scene 26, what's that about? it says.

He stares at it blankly, then returns the phone to his pocket.

\--

\- scene 26 in the latest script?

\- asked jonas what he thought, he's not sure. what's your opinion of it?

\--

\- richard?

\--

\- are u busy?

\--

\- richard it's lucy, are you there?

\--

When he phones her to try to explain, she seems confused.

"You don't really text?" she asks him, like he's just said he doesn't really breathe air.

"I find it easier to just speak," he says, and tries not to sound technologically illiterate.

"What if you can't make a call?" she says.

"I wait until I can," he says.

"What if they're not there to pick up?"

"I wait until they can," he says.

"How do you know when they can?"

"I ring repeatedly until they pick up," he says, knowing as he says this how ridiculous it sounds when he could just text. Something occurs to him. "Why don't you just leave a message?"

"I don't really do voicemail," Lucy says.

"You don't really do voicemail?"

"No, I don't."

"Why don't you do voicemail?"

"It takes too long."

"What could be faster than telling someone 'hi, it's me, get back to me when you have a moment'?"

"Texting," she says patiently.

"Right," Richard says, defeated.

"You can text, can't you?"

"Of course I can."

"All right, then, I'm putting the phone down. Text me a reply?"

"Sure."

She ends the call. Richard tries to text her a reply.

It takes him five minutes to find the question mark. After ten minutes, she phones him back.

"If it makes you more comfortable, you can ring me repeatedly until I pick up," she concedes.

"That is historically how phones have worked prior to this century," Richard says, a tad defensively.

"You and my grandfather would get along," Lucy says.

"I'm probably closer to your grandfather's age than I am to yours."

"You're seventy years old?"

"In spirit," he says.

"You don't act it."

"Thank you."

They're in the middle of the forest during this lunch break, and a small green caterpillar is crawling along the edge of his nearly untouched plate. He realizes he's probably not going to have the time to eat his food at this point, so he lets the caterpillar continue.

"Meet tonight to go over the script? And I'll show you how to use your phone," Lucy says.

He thinks about protesting that he does know how to use his phone. He's using it right now. "Sure," he says. "See you at seven?"

"See you at seven."

\--

It's eight and they're still looking at the script. They've been through the scene maybe a dozen times, and it doesn't seem to be working. Neither of them really know what else to do with it, so they've just been staring at the lines, hoping for inspiration to strike. She's on page eleven, he's on page twelve.

"So do you think she really likes him?" Lucy asks, breaking the silence. "Or is she just pretending the whole time?"

"She hasn't been pretending to like him at all," he points out, flipping the page.

"No, she has, that's just how she is with people she likes."

He looks up at her doubtfully. "Really?"

"Yeah."

They sit a while longer, staring at the paper.

"Are you getting anywhere?" she asks.

"Not really, no," he says.

"Suppose we could just wing it," she suggests.

They've already been through the scene a dozen times, so Richard suspects that if they wing it now, it won't turn out to be improvisation so much as just badly rehearsed. Then again, maybe a miracle'll happen in editing and everything will fall into place.

Lucy seems to read his train of thought from his expression. "We already know what doesn't work, at least."

Richard hesitates. A mosquito takes the opportunity to fly into his ear.

"Why not," he concedes once he's shaken it out.

She beams. "Hand me your phone, then."

"Why? Are you planning to text me if you think of something brilliant before tomorrow?" Richard says warily.

"Yes. I might also text you if I'm bored."

"I might not reply."

"That is precisely what we are trying to avoid here," she explains.

He hands her his phone.

\--

They do wing it. It turns out fine. Neither of them is comfortable with this fact.

Richard has no idea what they did different, and Lucy doesn't know either, and both of them are privately indignant about this. If something goes right, damn it, it'll be because they meant for it to go right, and not because of dumb luck. They look at each other, choose to forget it happened, and move onto the next scene, which they rehearse for two hours before it goes right.

They're satisfied with that one. The director swears there was no difference in the quality of performance, but they choose not to believe him. He's not going to be the one blamed if the acting is shoddy, after all.

\--

It isn't really a routine they intend to develop, but it becomes a casual habit as time goes on and they have increasingly difficult material together. The day before they have a scene, one of them will bring food to the other's trailer in the evening (Indian or Chinese or Mexican, the last of which Richard had enough of at school and cannot honestly understand, but she likes it better than Indian so there they are). They'll sit outside and go through the scene while eating, rehearse a bit, decide on a strategy, and then part once they're confident about the next day's shooting. They're both willing to put in the extra effort to make sure everything goes well on set, so it works out well.

The material is difficult mostly because neither of them is really sure what's going on with their characters at any one time. It's a bit of a toss-up. They spend a fair deal of time sitting on overturned buckets across from each other on the grass, frowning down at the copious notes they both have on separate notepads.

"Are we overthinking this? It's not like it's Macbeth," he says, flipping a page and grimacing. There's a doodle of a stick figure with a sword he can't remember making. It might have been profound at the time.

"Macbeth's been done by countless generations before us. This is the first time we're seeing this material," she says, scraping at the bottom of her food container.

"You're saying it'll become a classic based on our performances?"

"Undoubtedly."

"So that's why we're taking so much time to get it right."

"I know that's the only reason I'm spending so much time with you," she says.

He stares at her. It seems wrong, somehow, to tell her to piss off. "Piss off," he mumbles.

"What was that?"

"Nothing."

She smiles and looks back down.

\--

The thing he discovers about Lucy is that she smiles like Marian. There is her smirk, deliberate and icy, an all-purpose sort of pleased expression brought out when she wants to look smug. Then there is the smile she can't help, the one that's like a mask dropping. That one is rare for Marian -- at least in her scenes with him -- but Lucy does it, too, whenever she's happy, or relaxed, or when she's done something she finds funny that nobody else quite understands.

That's how he knows when Marian is supposed to be happy about something. Not that Guy of Gisbourne would be able to tell, so it doesn't make any difference to his performance, but it's good to know regardless. It's a real smile, the one she uses for the camera, and something about it makes him pause and miss a cue every time.

\--

The other thing is that Lucy does text him.

\--

\- how are you doing?

\- Melting, thank you.

\- cheer up, I'll see you at lunch if you make it that long

\- Maybe I can have vents cut into the jacket.

\- think about the cows that died to make that outfit now

 

\- you were right, worst film in the world, i want my evening back

 

\- makeup is furious today, did you kick jonas in the face?

\- Not on purpose.

\- in those trousers?? that is an impressively high kick

 

\- i could go for pad thai today

\- You mean real pad thai, not the kind catering gets?

\- i see you found the '?'

\- doesn't matter

\- i wouldn't want to get my expectations up

\--

Lucy's texts make him laugh, and he feels like he's becoming one of those idiots who sit by themselves and smile fondly at their phones in public places. He's assured that this is perfectly normal, generally by people who indulgently neglect to ask who he's texting. He doesn't tell them it's work related, because he's accused of working too hard often enough as it is, and also because most of the time it isn't really.

\--

"You mean everything to me," he declares, dead serious, her hand clasped between his.

Lucy grins. She's vibrating, she's laughing.

"What?" he says. He tries to maintain the composure of the moment, but it's infectious, too late, he's grinning too.

She shakes her head. "No, it's perfect. Go on, continue."

He slides the plastic bottle cap ring on her finger. She looks down, looks back at him, gives up.

"Do it again. And take your hair clips out," she says.

\--

When they shoot the scene, they have a real ring, and he's not wearing hair clips, and she barely glances at him.

"You mean everything to me," he dutifully recites. She blushes, and looks guilty, and it's perfect.

\--

She's wearing a white veil, and her lips are trembling. He's wearing a nicer-than-usual, still-roasting-hot black leather coat. They stare at each other while Sam is dragged kicking and screaming from the hall in a shot that will most certainly only be pieced together after the fact. They try not to hiccup.

\--

It's not until she's punched him in the face and the director shouts "CUT" that he realizes with a bit of a jolt that he's actually going to miss this. He's going to miss this, and maybe it's a pitfall of finally having steady work, but he's not sure at all what he's going to do afterwards.

\--

 

The minute they get their second series, Dominic sits him down.

"Foz and I have been talking," Dom says. "Guy and Marian."

"All right," Richard nods.

"So do you think she really likes him?" Dom asks. "Or is she just pretending the whole time?"

"I think he thinks she's been pretending the whole time," Richard explains.

"What if he was wrong?"

Dom's watching him like this is a test he needs to pass. "Then he would be different. He would be a different person."

Dom nods. "All right. Enjoy your holiday."

\--

He does enjoy his holiday. London is eminently breathable in a way he hadn't appreciated before. Some people now recognize him on the street, and he gets seated faster in restaurants. He catches up with his mates, sees shows, goes out some nights, stays in others. He does some interviews with magazines, but his life generally remains unremarkable.

It feels rather like waiting. It feels like an extended weekend, like biding his time while his life is on hold.

He has no contact during those weeks with anybody from set, except for one email from Lucy containing a link to a story someone's posted on a website. It stars Robin Hood, Guy of Gisbourne, copious amounts of rope and enthusiastic spanking. He spends the evening with his face glued to his countertop, alternately laughing and wanting to melt into the floor.

\--

Going back feels like coming home, which he supposes he's got the wrong way around, but there it is.

They have a night out when they all get back together. Someone has brought them celebratory wine, and it tastes a little bit like sawdust, which Richard supposes is supposed to be a note of oak. Sam and Gordon and Anjali spend the evening arguing about something or other, possibly nail varnish or pheasants or machine guns, it's difficult to tell with them. Joe and Jonas arm-wrestle, with Harry officiating. Keith pinches Richard on the ass and flashes a smile. It's like the family reunions he never attends, except everybody seems genuinely happy, for the most part.

Lucy finds him first, though he can't say he hasn't been looking for her. She's smaller, though. That's his excuse, anyway.

"I've been told we have quite the arc this time around," she says.

He blinks. She's wearing a t-shirt and minimal makeup, and after weeks of only seeing her in strangely-posed promotional material, she's comfortingly, reassuringly real. "Really? Who told you?"

"Foz. We begin with you burning my house down, and it grows steadily more intense from there," she says.

"Romantic," Richard agrees.

"You better practise your shouting. It's been a while since I had to look convincingly afraid of you," Lucy says.

"She's never going to be convincingly afraid of you, mate," Jonas calls out helpfully, then grunts.

"I'll be convincing as I like," Lucy calls back breezily. "Joe, get him," she adds. From the noise Jonas makes, Joe does.

Richard squints at Lucy. He's trying to figure out if there's something different about her, or if it's just the lighting, or if it's just him, when Lucy looks back at him and he realizes he's probably been staring.

"What kind of wine is that?" Lucy asks, indicating the glass.

Richard looks at it. "Red," he says, because that is factually true.

"Sophisticated, you," Lucy says.

"I do taste some sort of wooden note, but I'm not sure if that's because the cork got in," Richard concedes.

Lucy laughs. "Let me have some of that?"

He does. She takes the glass, takes a sip, makes a face like something died and passes it back.

"I'll see you tomorrow," she says, and leaves with a quirk to her mouth.

Richard drinks the rest of the glass.

\--

She was not joking.

They fall back into a routine of rehearsing in their spare time, but it's a level of driven that's new to them. There's more shouting, more honesty, more over-the-top drama, sometimes hilarious, sometimes genuine. It's exhausting and fairly delightful. The show's also gotten more violent, and a fair bit raunchier.

"Wasn't this supposed to be a children's programme?" Richard wonders one day, stripped naked to the waist, and Keith cackles until he falls over.

A couple of times they wind up on set until four in the morning, stumbling off dazed just before the sunrise. There is a death scene, and Lucy sobs into Richard's shirt repeatedly. There are declarations of love, and Richard yells until his throat is dry. There are long looks of silent regret, accompanied by endless amounts of eye-rolling from Joe in the background. There is a kissing scene. This is, both reasonably and stupidly, the one they practise least.

"Guy," Marian cries, and Richard turns around, and Lucy smashes her mouth to his.

They do several takes, and in between each, Richard has a feeling that lands somewhere between needing a moment to breathe and wanting to go again immediately. It takes him a while to identify the feeling as frustration. It feels like shooting a fight scene. It is incredibly draining. It is not unpleasant.

"You kiss like a drowning man," Lucy declares afterwards. He's drinking an entire bottle of water, plastic crackling in his grip.

He swallows and wipes his mouth. "I kiss like a suffocating man," he corrects her, "because that is what I was." He thinks about her grabbing him, one hand just behind his neck and the other fisted in the shoulder of his jacket, and pulling forward and down until his mouth meets hers, soft and heated and demanding, no room to breathe. "Warn me next time?"

She smiles and he feels like he's missed a cue again, though they're not on set and the cameras aren't rolling. "I don't promise that," she says.

\--

It's eight-thirty in the evening and they're having another study session in the sweltering heat. Richard really needs a shower. Lucy has her hair tied in a knot at the back of her head, but the ends are escaping and they look a little wilted as well. Neither of them suggest turning in.

\--

"Can we talk about scene eight here?" Lucy asks. She sounds vaguely nervous, but he obligingly flips to the page.

He skims it. "I'm not in this scene," he says.

"I know."

"It's just you and Jonas," he says. "What -- "

"How's he likely to play it, do you think?"

"I don't know. Shouldn't you ask him?" Richard is confused.

"I did," she says. "I had lunch with him and went through it, but I don't -- " She looked bothered.

Jonas can fairly intense to work with, and Richard doesn't want to think about why Lucy doesn't mind being uncertain around Richard. Possibly she just thinks he's easier to impress.

"All right," he says. "Let's try it."

She looks grateful and relieved. "Thank you," she says unaffectedly, but her voice is soft. "Sorry for taking advantage," she adds with a small measure of mirth. "I'll bring dinner next time."

"I'll hold you to it," he says. A beat. "I suppose I'll read the part of Robin, then?"

She grins. "You can be Marian next time," she says, and she closes her eyes and clears her throat, and curls her hand into his.

\--

It rains. They should move inside, to one of their trailers. It seems a little weird though -- not that either of them brings it up -- so they don't. They move underneath an awning instead, and are dripped on for the rest of the evening. Neither of them suggest turning in.

\--

\- you have the new script yet? read page twenty-three

\- you'll know when you get to it

\- I read it.

Lucy actually phones him.

"Hello," he says. "This is a surprise."

Lucy makes a high-pitched noise that it takes him a moment to recognize as muffled laughter.

"Stop laughing," he says. "I'm going to have to read this. You're going to have to read this."

Lucy makes the choked laughing noise into his ear for another minute and a half, and then ends the call.

He puts the phone down.

\--

Anjali walks by, carrying an umbrella. She stops.

"What are you two doing out here?"

They look at her, both of them with umbrellas propped ineffectively over their shoulders, hands full of pages.

Anjali hops from foot to foot. She looks at Richard, looks at Richard's trailer. "You going to invite her in or what?"

Richard glances at Lucy, Lucy glances back.

Anjali rolls her eyes. "Oi, you are such a bloody gentleman," she says. She addresses Lucy: "You can stand inside the steps, and -- " she looks at Richard " -- you can stand out in the rain, all right? Solved." Anjali shakes her head, continues on past.

They watch her go. A minute later, Richard says awkwardly, "We could probably go inside."

"Yeah, why not," Lucy concedes.

\--

He's been meaning to catch up with the new episodes for a while. It's always a bit strange to watch himself on screen, but he supposes they are somewhat obligated, and besides, it's a proud sort of embarrassed. It's almost always better with somebody else there, though, so he's put it off until they've had a good chunk of free time.

It's the end of the week when she shows up on his doorstep carrying two boxes of takeaway, a half-melted box of chocolates, and four bottles of wine.

"Are we going to drink all that?" he says, after a temporary speechlessness.

She frowns. "You have been watching your own show?" she says. She hands him a bag.

He considers this, takes the bag and waves her in.

\--

The food is terrible, the wine is not. They get through it faster than they get through the episodes.

"I still can't believe he never figured out it was her," she says, sipping her wine. Her legs are curled up under her, and she leans forward, back straight, watching the laptop screen intently.

"He knew it was her all along," Richard insists. He is sitting on the floor and there is not enough room for his legs, but it is not too uncomfortable, considering the awkward angles at which he's learned to fold them over the past twenty years.

"You play 'knowing' a lot like 'utter shock'," she says.

They are watching Richard declare his love yet again.

"There's another one," Lucy says. She raises her glass. They both take a drink.

"How many marriage proposals have there been at this point?" Richard says, amazed.

"You think he'd catch on that she wouldn't marry him if he was the last man alive, but no, you have to admire his determination," Lucy agrees.

"The man is desperate."

"Well, how many women have you seen around him?"

"Not many recently. The Sheriff's been chasing them all off. Doesn't want anybody taking his man away."

"That's why he's so desperate to get married, clearly."

"He's tired of just being the Sheriff's hot secretary?"

"Clearly."

Richard pours another glass for both him and Lucy, squints at the screen. "I don't even remember filming this."

"Maybe they put it together with CGI," Lucy suggests.

"No, I think I just don't remember it," he admits.

"Ahh," Lucy nods wisely. "To be fair, the writers clearly don't remember it either."

"What, you don't think the story lines up?"

She laughs.

"What?"

"If it lined up with the start of the first series," Lucy says, "Then, I think we'd be in trouble."

He twists around to look at her. There's a light on somewhere in the kitchenette, and another somewhere above, and the light fractures across the room, swimming pleasantly around them.

"What are you saying about the show, then?" he demands. "Doomed from the beginning?"

"God, no," Lucy says. "We're still here, after all."

"True," Richard says.

"I'm saying it's gotten better," Lucy says. "Much better. Upwards trajectory since the moment we met."

"You think so?"

"I know so."

"How do you know? You haven't seen any more than I have."

She smiles.

It's probably the buzz from the wine and the sticky heat of the summer evening, but when she smiles, that familiar feeling clicks into place in his stomach, and he decides to call her out on it.

"You're smiling that way again," he says.

"Smiling what way?"

"It's your Marian smile," he says. "Like you've realized something nobody else knows and you're too entertained by it to just be smug."

"It's my face," she says. "Is there a problem?"

"No," he says truthfully.

"What, then?"

"It's strange to see you smile like that when we're not filming, is all. It looks too," he frowns, "real." He needs to stop.

"I'll take that as a compliment."

"Please do," he says.

"You do it too," she insists.

"Do what?"

"Act like your character offscreen."

He's concerned. "I look like I want to murder people?"

"No," she laughs. "When you look at me and make that face -- "

"And make -- ?"

" -- that face he makes at her all the time -- "

"What face?"

" -- that face like -- "

"Like what?"

" -- like he's in love," she says.

"Oh," he says. "That face."

The silence stretches on. The carpet prickles against his palms, artificial fiber digging into the skin, but everything is soft. Lucy is soft, clear, outlined in amber. She's not wearing her stage makeup, and her eyelashes tangle around pale blue, her lips just tinged with natural color. He's starting to get the feeling that this was a bad idea, a bad idea verging on awful. He doesn't move.

"See?" she says softly, teasingly. "You're doing it now."

"Am I," he says.

She leans in and kisses him.

It takes him a moment to react (she never did promise to warn him), and then he raises his hand to the crook of her arm and kisses her back.

\--

He goes out the next day, gets a coffee, visits the corner shop and picks up some groceries. He smiles his standard greeting to the man at the counter. He stops at a park and eats a sandwich on a bench; watches pigeons waddle in a pattern around him for a couple minutes. Clouds roll in, providing shade from the blue sky, and he gets up and digs for his keys in his pocket.

The last script is sitting in his letterbox when he gets home.

He hoists his groceries up onto the counter, puts the milk and eggs in the fridge, pours himself a glass of water, wipes his hands, and opens the envelope.

\--

He reads it.

He reads it, and then he reads it again.

Then he reads it again.

Then he phones Dom.

\--

"No," he says.

"What?"

"No," he repeats.

"What do you -- "

"I'm not doing it," he says.

"Richard -- "

For the first time in his life, he rings off on a writer and doesn't call back.

\--

When she opens the door, he looks at her and knows.

"Did you read this?"

"Yes."

"You knew about it," he says.

If she shook her head, or looked upset, or even surprised, he'd know what to do, what to be angry about, but she just seems a little pale.

"I've been talking about it with them for a while now," she admits.

"You didn't say anything."

"No."

"Why didn't you?"

"I didn't want you to think I was leaving for the wrong reasons."

"What reasons would those be?"

"Whatever reasons you're thinking right now."

He leans back and tries to get control over himself.

"You're not coming back," he says.

She looks sorry. "No."

He feels like someone has yanked something in the bottom of his stomach, some loose end, and is running away with it, something inside him unravelling too fast as he tries to hold it together.

"Why not?"

She shrugs. She looks tired, but meets his gaze head-on.

"It was time," she says.

He considers just turning around and leaving, going back home and putting the script back in the envelope and going back to bed, like this never happened, and if he got up on a different side of the bed this time, the day would go differently and he wouldn't have to deal with this.

But Lucy is still here watching him, and it would be unfair to pretend this is really about him.

They're still standing just inside the door, across from each other, light coming in murky through the tiny window. She bites her lip.

"Are you all right?" she asks, apparently dreading the answer.

He swallows twice. "Are you?"

She sighs.

She looks down. The sheaf of papers is still clutched in his hand, already bent out of shape from his trek over. She holds out her hand for it, and he unrolls it, flattens it out, hands it over.

He watches her read it again, more carefully. Very few emotions cross her face, though she does wince at one point and murmur "dear Lord", muffled by the pages. He crosses his arms.

He knows when she gets to the scene in question, because she grimaces, avoids his gaze, and only flips half-heartedly through the rest. Then she goes back.

"Did you know how it was going to happen?" he asks then, a little irate.

"I had an idea," she hedges.

"Why like this?" He gestures at the pages.

She shakes her head, wry. "Well, I can't say it's entirely unexpected," she says. "Actually, it was bound to happen eventually."

A noise comes out of his mouth, and it sounds like outrage.

"There's a level of realism there," she says, and her mouth wobbles, and she grins.

He throws up his hands, breaks down and laughs. She laughs too, and she reaches out for the wall, and changes her mind and reaches for him instead, and then they're just laughing in each other's arms.

When the laughter finally dies down, he confesses over the top of her head, "I told Dom I wouldn't do it."

"What do you mean you won't do it?" she says.

"I'm not going to read this bollocks," he says.

She snorts warmly into his shoulder. "Please. If you got this far without complaining, you can make anything work."

"No," he clarifies quietly. "I'm not going to do this to you."

But he can and he will and he has to, and so she smiles and exhales, and rests her head in the hollow between his shoulder and his collar bone, and slips both arms around him, and squeezes until he's okay.

\--

Joe's peering at him over coffee they're both waiting to cool down.

"You all right, man?"

"Yeah," Richard says.

Joe waves his hand over his cup, frowns in concern. "You look a bit tired."

Richard grimaces. "Not sleeping the best, yeah," he mumbles, taking a sip.

"Anything wrong?"

There's a quiet like Joe is waiting for an answer, and Richard knows that Joe doesn't really expect Richard to say. He appreciates that Joe is ready to listen if he does, though.

"Just work," Richard says. "You know."

Joe nods. "Well, take it easy, hey? Only a few weeks left."

Richard hums his agreement. It's the few weeks left that's the problem, but there's nothing he can do about it.

\--

He reads the scene over and over instead of sleeping. When he closes his eyes, the lines are still there, white on black instead of black on white. He imagines the million different ways the scene could go, little details providing variation, and in his head he's filming it already, take after take. It's terrible every time, and he knows he needs to stop doing this.

He lays in bed with all the lights off. No covers, too hot. The moonlight makes a slanted square on the wall through the window.

This is absurd, he tells himself.

It's just acting, he tells himself.

The moonlight moves across the wall.

\--

He dreams.

He dreams that he's in Guy's black leather outfit. There aren't any cameras, though, and no lights or fans or screens or booms. It's hot, but thankfully not unbearable for once -- the walls are really stone. He reaches out and scrapes a knuckle across one and paint doesn't flake off, though he does get grime on his hand. Somewhere in the distance the director shouts ACTION, but it's in Keith's voice, and it's followed by a screech of "you twit!" Richard looks around, chagrined.

A shadow brushes past him in the torchlight. Joe's voice mumbles almost inaudibly, "I'm not sayin' nothin', but." A doorknob is pressed into his hand and something squeezes his shoulder briefly before it disappears.

He opens the door. Lucy looks up.

He's not sure what happens next.

He dreams her face changes, and she looks astonished. You came back! she says.

He dreams he says, there's still time for you to get away. He dreams he really means it, really wants that.

He dreams she says, you did this for me, after everything you said?

He dreams he says, you don't know me as well as you think.

He dreams she says, the hell I don't.

(He dreams he yells at Lee Ross to go fuck himself. Keith adds gleefully, "you twit!")

He dreams he's a man who says, do something for me now?

And he dreams he's a man who has become different. He dreams he's a man who would defend his soldiers, stay with his people, die for his city, and risk his life to save hers. He dreams he's a man who loves her for who she is even when nobody else knows. He dreams he's a man who would let her go if she said she wanted to go. He dreams he's a man who can ask her to stay.

And he dreams that when she smiles and flings her arms around him and kisses him on the cheek, that's different too. For the first time, that smile is really for him. For the first time, that kiss is really for him. She's staying, but this time she's staying for him. She finds she wants to stay for him.

He dreams a universe where he says, stay,

and she smiles and says, I will stay,

and she throws her arms around him

and he does not stab her to death.

 

He wakes up and thinks he's going insane.

\--

The trouble is he's never been the kind of actor who could just do the take, leave the set, and drop the character. He's never been good at leaving work at work. He's not sure it's really just acting for him, and he hasn't been for a while now. He has a terrible suspicion that no matter how he tells himself it is, he's forgotten how to believe it.

\--

It's a blazing hot day when they shoot the scene. The sun is high overhead, dust vivid beneath, and she looks like she's glowing.

Her white frock is the simplest thing she's worn in two years. Her hair is undone and tangled in waves about her face, burnt gold like a halo, and her eyes are lit up bluer than the sky. She should look like this every day, he thinks. Two years' budget spent on elaborate hairstyles and fancy dresses. They need a new design team.

He's holding his sword. He knows what she's going to say. He's heard it in his head a thousand times.

"I'm going to marry Robin Hood," she says breathlessly.

It doesn't even sound like words to him anymore.

"I love Robin Hood," she says.

He can't even hear it.

"I love Robin Hood," she repeats, and then she smiles.

She smiles that Marian smile, the Lucy smile, the one that looks like a secret and like a mask dropping, like a fire catching, like she's discovering something new and wonderful only she can see. It crosses her face with a bit of surprise and a bit of delight. She makes a noise like a hiccup and a laugh, and he thinks about Lucy outlined in amber, hair loose and wearing a t-shirt, the carpet beneath his palms and the glass of wine nearly spilling, Lucy making that noise against his mouth. He thinks about her saying wryly: it was bound to happen.

She's smiling and staring at the ground, and she's not thinking of him. This smile is not for him.

It was probably never going to be for him, anyway. It occurs to him he's not really going to have a chance to see it again after this.

He tells himself that she never promised to stay. She never said she would stay. She never even said she wanted to stay. Just because he'll still be here without her --

He steps forward and stabs her in the gut, and it is the absolute worst moment to think he kind of understands how a person could make this mistake.

\--

In the end, it doesn't look like he hurts her, and he wishes he could say it hurts him, but really what he feels is numb. She looks surprised, and something like betrayal nags at him, because this isn't what he wanted. It's not what he wanted at all, and it's a bit rich of her to look at him accusingly, when none of this was really his idea.

He immediately feels awful for thinking this, and the director loves it because this is the take they use, Richard standing there confused in the midday sun, having just ruined everything and not sure why he's done it.

\--

People call Richard a method actor, but he isn't really. Richard's spoken with method actors. He remembers interviewing a method actor once or twice during school, when he had opportunity to do. The fact that they didn't consider themselves method actors either probably says something about the whole profession and the level of insanity surrounding it.

"Method acting's a gimmick," one of them had said to him. She didn't say it condescendingly. She just confided it, as if sharing advice. "Just an excuse for actors who find that their characters act like people, and those people act like themselves. Character bleed is probably the more appropriate term for it. I don't think anybody means to be a method actor."

\--

\- is this any of this project going to stay with you?

\- I take some of every role with me.

\- take the trousers.

\--

 

By the time the third series rolls around, he's lost weight and gotten paler. It's for another role -- this is the better explanation, anyway -- but they do have a new design team, who are delighted to run with the look. They've new cast members after the exit of half the cast in the last finale. They've new writers after Dom left. It's practically a new show.

It's not bad, in fact, just different. He's starting to understand that's a risk with television that runs several series long. It feels like they've lost something before he was ready, but there's no real point dwelling. He's got work. There's nothing to complain about.

They have another reception when the shooting officially begins. It's a bit awkward, but if Richard thinks of it as a new crew with a few familiar faces instead of an old crew with parts missing, he doesn't make comparisons.

"So how do I get into character?" Lara asks. She's wearing a dark jacket and a curl on the corner of her mouth, and she looks like she's halfway there already. "You've been the resident baddie, I thought I ought to learn from the best."

"If you're tired of what you've been doing then you've been doing something right, I've been told," Richard says.

She seems intrigued. "Role wear you down?"

"No," Richard says, and is surprised to find this is true. "I love it. Villainy's energizing, really."

"Ah," Lara says. "Going to have to find something else to keep you going this series, then."

"Writing me off already?"

"Please, what do they need you around for? They've got me now."

"You think you could do me?"  
  
"I think I could do you."

Richard laughs. She grins, and it's sharp.

She puts a bit of a challenge in. "So what have I been missing out on?"

"A fantastic wardrobe, for starters," Richard says, more easily now.

"I understand we're trying for something new now."

Richard shakes his head fondly. "It won't be the same."

"Cheers to that," she says. She raises her glass and takes a sip. She makes a face, offers him the rest. "Want some?"

"What kind of wine is it?" Richard is pretty sure he knows.

She looks at it. "Red," she concludes.

"Red," Richard agrees.

\--

Lara's great to work with. She's a wonderful scene partner, and she actually seems to enjoy the long hours spent beating each other to a bloody pulp, making sad faces all the while.

"It's torment," she says. "I'm tormented."

"I see the family resemblance," Jonas says darkly, stretching his shoulders and looking between Richard and Lara.

"That probably says something about our relationship," Lara tells him.

"Hey, you're new," Jonas protests. "You know nothing about our relationship."

"Is there something I should know?" Lara says, looking at Richard and raising a brow.

"No," Richard denies categorically.

"You too?" Jonas tells him, mock-indignant. "Sod off!"

Lara looks at both of them more closely. "I see torment. Are you sure there's no shared history there?"

"It's a byproduct of being in each other's company," Richard says.

"Right, let's go again before I bash him in the mouth for no reason," Jonas says.

There is something different about Jonas though, Richard notices. It's a certain tiredness Richard thinks he recognizes.

\--

Lara is able to snap in and out of character faster than anybody Richard has seen in a while. They go for beers and run lines and have a great time and go home afterwards, and work never bothers her off-set, so it never bothers Richard. It's a relief, not thinking about things.

When Clive comes in the set reaches a new level of energy, and the place hasn't been so loud in Richard's recent memory. They go off and watch a film one weekend, the three of them, picking the most hackneyed-sounding title showing. They eat an enormous bag of popcorn and make hushed commentary in the back. Richard winds up with popcorn in his jacket pockets somehow.

Clive punches him in the shoulder after. Not many people can knock Richard over, but Clive's punch puts in a good effort. "Don't stay up too late," Clive warns. Lara cheerfully reaches over from Richard's other side and punches Clive back in the shoulder, which does nothing. Clive waves them goodbye.

Richard walks Lara back to her place, and she reaches up and ruffles his hair before going in. "See you Monday," she calls over her shoulder.

Richard goes home and sleeps.

\--

"You are really missing someone, aren't you," Lara says over soggy pasta.

Richard looks at her in surprise. He puts down his fork. "No," he says.

She looks offended. "Did you hear me accuse you of a crime?" She raises her hand. She resumes eating.

Richard picks up his fork again, digs at his plate. He hasn't got an appetite, he realizes.

Lara watches him from the corner of her eye. She frowns.

"Hey now," she says, more gently.

He puts his fork back down.

"If it's Keith broke your heart, I'll knock out the rest of his teeth," she offers.

Richard feels a bit of a smile ghost across his face. "I appreciate it," he says.

\--

The thing is he never really said goodbye to Lucy. He saw her a couple times after they shot their last scene together, but the first time she was still chatting with Jonas after their big last scene, and after discerning that she would be busy for a while yet, he kept on walking.

The second time was she was leaving. There were flights to catch, and the flurries of goodbyes between various cast members were slightly confused -- it was difficult to remember some of them wouldn't be coming back, and the weight of that seemed lost in the hurry.

Richard had meant to see her before she left. Talk, even if briefly. But he wasn't sure what to say, and then the time for it seemed to be over. Some missed opportunity seemed to lie just beneath his skin, and if he opened his mouth it felt like it would spill out, but nothing did, so he pushed it down.

Lucy threw her arms around him, and he held her for a minute. She seemed to hold her breath. Nobody around them seemed to notice.

Then she sighed. "Stay in touch," she whispered against the side of his neck.

She slid out of his arms with a last faint smile, and then she was gone into the crowd.

\--

He feels like if their last scene had been long and verbose and bombastic, full of shrieking and tears and long agonized speeches, they would've been able to laugh it off afterwards and gone for a drink. But the scene was uncharacteristically simple, and something about it felt too raw and awkward to openly address. The uncomfortable silence would be the thing that stayed with them, it turned out.

The one single time a scene was underwrought, it would be the one that mattered.

He never really said goodbye to Dom either, but he's okay with that. He still hasn't entirely forgiven the man.

\--

"They're going for a fourth series," Jonas says.

Richard isn't surprised.

They're sitting outside, mid-afternoon. The sun slants down and the wind ruffles through the leaves, the grass, their hair. In the periphery of his vision he sees Jonas watch him for a moment, then turn his gaze back to the distance.

"You coming back?" Jonas says.

Richard exhales a long breath. "I don't know," he says.

But he does know, and he knows Jonas knows as well. No surprises this time.

\--

Turns out he's wrong about there being no surprises. Sam catches him on the way out one day, casually rapping on his trailer door.

"Guess who's back?" Sam says, brandishing the last script.

"Who?" Richard hasn't gotten his copy yet.

"Don't tell him," Gordon says, appearing out of nowhere and ushering Sam along. "Read the whole bloody thing, for God's sake!" Gordon calls genially over his shoulder.

Richard always does read the whole script, but he doesn't protest.

He opens his copy as soon as he gets it and skims it, front to back. There are three lines. He's not in it. It'll take an hour to shoot.

He knows she's busy working on her next project in London. It's a tight schedule and he's surprised she can afford any time off. She'd have to be off the plane and back on again within a day. He wonders how they convinced her to come back for this at all.

There's no reason for him to be there that afternoon. She'll be here and gone before he even knows it.

He spends a while staring at the script, then tears off the pages he doesn't need. He shakily sets those aside in a drawer, and tries to forget about them.

\--

He doesn't know why he expects nightmares before his last scene, because it turns out dying isn't difficult to do at all. There's a lot of noise, the vertigo of looking up past the camera while Jonas looks chagrined somewhere above, his own last gasps on demand. It's surreal, but satisfying. This is the last of this he'll ever do. This is the last piece of the story falling into place, and it comes with something like relief, knowing that it's finally over.

When it ends, it ends, and he allows himself a moment to know he'll miss it. Then he breathes, and a weight releases from him. The character slips away, and he feels more peaceful than he has in a long time.

He's just Richard.

When he sits on the edge of his bed that night, most of his things packed up already for his flight early next week, the sense of unhappiness is wholly his.

\--

Lucy's flight in is on early Saturday morning. He stays in bed until about noon, looking at the cracks in the ceiling. He gets up, showers, makes breakfast, doesn't eat it. He puts on a jacket and goes out.

He spends the entire day walking through the city, hands in pockets, lurking in all the places he's gotten familiar with and won't be seeing again. He gets tea and a scone from the shop near the river -- the best tea he's had here -- and then tea and a scone from the shop on the corner -- not the best tea he's had, but the place he's been the most. He stays out until dark, watching bands of young people start roam the streets. Then he goes home.

There's a couple messages from his agent on his phone. He makes himself a note to reply by email.

He hesitates, then shuts the phone off entirely and goes to bed.

\--

Sunday morning, he wakes at about noon. He stares at the cracks in his ceiling.

Eventually he gets up and showers. He abandons the idea of food entirely -- there's almost nothing in the fridge anymore anyway. He puts on his jacket and goes out.

He walks in the opposite direction of the studio.

He keeps going until sunset.

When he's certain shooting for the day is over, he looks up over the skyline, watches for the better part of an hour until the clouds turn dark blue, then heads home.

\--

Lucy's sitting in front of his door.

He pauses, uncertain, keys dangling from his hand. "What," he says.

She turns to him. "Where the hell have you been?" she says.

"I've just been out," he says, flabbergasted. "What are you doing here?"

"Waiting for you!"

"How long have you been here?"

"Long enough for three people to come by and ask if you threw me out," Lucy says, color coming to her cheeks.

Richard rakes a hand through his hair, flustered. Well, the neighbors won't be sad to see him go.

"I was wondering if you were going to come back at all or if you found somewhere else to spend your last night," Lucy says.

"God, no," Richard says, with feeling. "Were you just going to wait until morning?"

"Yes," Lucy says. She looks at him awkwardly. There's a cigarette burning down between her fingers, forgotten.

Richard finally remembers the keys, and goes to get the door open. Lucy straightens up and follows him in.

He flicks the lights on, sets the keys down on the bare counter. Lucy looks around. "I assume you haven't been living like this the whole time," she says.

The place is basically white walls, white carpet, untouched furniture. Dust hasn't even settled. The pale gold light fixture lends a little warmth, but it's still devoid of any personal touches.

"I packed last week," he says in lieu of the truth, which is that it looked like this even before he'd packed this time around.

"Where's your phone?" she says.

"I left it behind," he says.

She gives him a judgmental look. He doesn't bother to explain.

"I didn't know you smoked," he says instead.

She looks sheepish. "I don't really," she says. "Picked up a habit for a month or two." She flicks the cigarette into the sink.

They sit across from each other in the kitchen and stare.

"I didn't know how long you'd be back," he says at last.

"Just until tomorrow," she says. "They did my scene last."

"So you're done now?"

"Yeah."

"How was it?"

"Good," she says. "Good."

"Challenging, I assume," he says, and that gets a smile out of her.

"Yeah, most difficult thing I've done in my career," she says. "You all look like you've been having fun. I feel like I've missed out."

"We have," he says. "It's been -- interesting."

"Familiar," she agrees. "But different."

He knows what she means.

"I missed the lads," she adds. "I looked for you on set, but they told me you were done."

He feels a twinge of guilt for taking off so quickly. "I am, yeah."

"You've been avoiding them?"

"No, not at all, that's not -- "

"Just me, then?"

Richard winces. He feels incredibly stupid.

She exhales. "Richard…"

"I'm sorry, I was being -- I don't really know why," he says, because that's exactly what he's been doing. "I didn't mean to make it look like that, I should've stopped by."

She looks up at him, a little exasperated, but fond nonetheless. "Did I do something wrong?"

"No," he says.

She doesn't believe him, he can tell. She merely tilts her head and waits, patient, eyes on him.

It strikes him how different she is from when they first met, when she looked across the room at him and blushed and glanced down again. He can't say he feels like the same person either -- or if he is, he feels like he's lived an extra lifetime, crammed in somewhere in the last three years. This is the longest time he's ever worked on something. He's known plenty of people longer than he's known these people though, longer than he's known Lucy, and he's not sure how it happened, that it feels like they've grown up together.

"Richard," she prompts again.

"Why did you leave?" he blurts, and it sounds almost plaintive, but he can't take it back.

She sighs.

"Sorry, I know," he says. "That's not what I meant."

"I know," she says. "Did you miss me?"

"Of course I did," Richard says, and it's more true than he can fit into the sound of the words.

She smiles. "The lads say they missed me too, but I'm not sure how much I believe them. You did get Lara and Joanne out of the deal."

"I missed you," he says, because it's not the same at all.

She looks at him like she's trying to bite back a laugh. Then she looks out the window.

What she sees he's not sure, because the glass is dark and all he can see is the reflection of bare walls. But he doesn't say anything. She has something on her mind, he can tell, and she's wetting her lips, so it's his turn to wait, patient.

"I didn't think I would mind leaving so much," she says, uncertainly. "I knew I would miss it, but not -- well. I thought I'd move on quick enough, and I have, but you know, it feels like -- like I've -- put down a book early, or something. Like I'd been reading a book in a store, and I set it down without buying it, and then weeks later I still find myself wondering how it ended."

"You can watch the series at home," Richard says. "It comes on every Saturday at -- "

"It's not the same," she laughs.

He smiles. "Is that how they got you back? A chance to read the final script before the rest of the world got it?"

"They did! I had three lines," she says. "They flew me all the way back here. It's an important scene."

"It had better be their best work yet," Richard says.

"Of course it is. It's what I came back for, after all."

"Is it?" he says.

"Yes," she says.

She turns and gets up, and he doesn't move from his kitchen stool, but he doesn't take his eyes off her either, not when she sidles up to him and ducks her head to the side and tilts his face up to meet her gaze.

"I also came back for this, though," she says.

This time he's ready for it, but for once she hesitates, and so he leans in first.

He kisses her, and she anchors her hands on the kitchen counter and kisses back. Her mouth tastes like cigarette smoke and licorice. He's not sure how he gets off the stool but he does, and she's tugging him down by his shirt, really kissing like drowning, and he keeps needing to remind himself to breathe.

They fumble like teenagers, his hands sliding under the seam of her shirt across the cream of her skin, her fingers digging into the angles of his hips and hooking under his belt. It's an unsteady position, but he has his feet braced on either side of them, and the counter pressed up against her back. Then her hands slide down and squeeze. He jolts, and curses.

"You have a bed somewhere in here, don't you," she mumbles in his ear. "Or have you got rid of that, too?"

In retaliation he finds her mouth again, and then pinches through the fabric of her bra until he hears her breath catch. Then he hooks his hands under her knees and stumbles to the bedroom.

Getting their clothes off is the least graceful thing he's done in as long as he can remember. He's not entirely sure the clothes even come all the way off, they just seem to push whatever cloth their hands encounter as far out of the way as it seems to matter. Her fingers hook under his jacket and pull it back down over his shoulders, and eventually it's kicked to some corner of the room. She's wearing something with laces but the laces don't matter, not as long as they don't get tangled in her hair as it goes over her head. Her jeans must go somewhere after she pulls them off, but he doesn't really notice, and in the end he thinks his shirt remains tangled around one of his arms the whole way through.

Her fingers dig into his bare shoulders, and her heels dig into his spine, and she says his name just once, shakily, before she comes. He doesn't have enough breath to say her name, so something wordless and incoherent escapes his lips instead when he comes, ending on a sigh and a "you".

He groans, drops his head to her shoulder, and feels her shake with a small laugh, her fingers in his hair.

"Hmm," she says, and he can feel her smile.

They collapse on the bed after that, and after a while, when it gets too cool, she pulls back the covers and rolls beneath them. He follows suit, and she grabs his arm lazily beneath, and they sleep like that until morning.

\--

When he wakes up, the shower is running, and he rolls over and stays in bed until it's done. Then he goes for his turn. When he comes out, Lucy is examining his living area.

"You really have nothing here," she says, looking in the fridge.

"No," he says. He remembers: "Don't you have a flight to catch?"

"Yes. Don't you?"

He checks his wrist, realizes he's not wearing his watch. "Shit," he says.

She smothers a laugh. He goes to retrieve his watch.

"I've got a few hours," he says when he comes back.

She nods. "I need to get my things from my hotel," she says. "Come with?"

He gets his jacket.

She winds her fingers into his in the taxi, peering out the windows as they pass the landmarks, and he's all right with that.

\--

It's only when she's gone to the airport and he's on his way back that he remembers to turn on his phone again.

There are fifteen text messages. Three are from his agent, and twelve are from Lucy. Among those are:

\- i'm in the makeup trailer and there are photos

\- YOUR HAIR

\- i need to start watching this series

\- i'm told you're not in today

\- where are you?

\- never mind you can read this when you find the phone you clearly lost

There's a couple more from the previous day, and then the last ones are recent. They are an address in London, and:

\- i was looking through your boxes and i saw you kept the trousers by the way

\- have a safe flight

Then there is a smiley face.

She should be on her flight by now, electronic device ban in effect. He texts back anyway:

\- I retain the positive aspects of every character I play.

There's five hours to his own flight. He smiles at the city all the way back to his apartment.

 


End file.
